Happy New Year.  Its time to make those all important plans for the next 12 months(if they are not already done), before you do check out the below list of 25 questions you should ask yourself before deciding on your SEO strategy.

It’s time to be honest about your SEO. You may not want to hire an SEO professional but it is time you took stock of your own search engine optimisation and what direction you are heading in. Like any audit, you need to decide your websites strengths and weaknesses, what you already have and what you need to do. Answer the following 25 questions carefully and accurately. The information that comes out of this process will give you a comprehensive and independent assessment of your current SEO status.

25 may seem like a lot. Why not start today and aim to have them completed for the end of the week.  SEO is something that must be gotten to grips with. Take the first step and do your SEO audit. Start today.

On the first day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me a talk on website usability

On the second day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me 2 key word research tools (Google Keyword Tool & Wordtracker) and a talk on website usability

On the third day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me 3 key areas on my website to add my key phrases (SEO Tips), 2 key word research tools and a talk on website usability

On the fourth day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me 4 ways to optimise my meta data, 3 key areas on my website to add my key phrases, 2 key word research tools and a talk on website usability

On the fifth day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me the 5 steps for acquiring customers online , 4 ways to optimise my meta data, 3 key areas on my website to add my key phrases, 2 key word research tools and a talk on website usability

On the sixth day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me 6 ways to increase my link popularity, 5 steps for acquiring customers online , 4 ways to optimise my meta data, 3 key areas on my website to add my key phrases, 2 key word research tools and a talk on website usability

On the seventh day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me 7 tips for writing good meta data,  6 ways to increase my link popularity, 5 steps for acquiring customers online , 4 ways to optimise my meta data, 3 key areas on my website to add my key phrases, 2 key word research tools and a talk on website usability

On the eight day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me 8 great reports in analytics to analyse,  7 tips for writing good meta data,  6 ways to increase my link popularity, 5 steps for acquiring customers online , 4 ways to optimise my meta data, 3 key areas on my website to add my key phrases, 2 key word research tools and a talk on website usability

On the ninth day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me  9 great tips on creating a strong brand, 8 great reports in analytics to analyse,  7 tips for writing good meta data,  6 ways to increase my link popularity, 5 steps for acquiring customers online , 4 ways to optimise my meta data, 3 key areas on my website to add my key phrases, 2 key word research tools and a talk on website usability

On the tenth day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me 10 tips for writing for the web,  9 great tips on creating a strong brand, 8 great reports in analytics to analyse,  7 tips for writing good meta data,  6 ways to increase my link popularity, 5 steps for acquiring customers online , 4 ways to optimise my meta data, 3 key areas on my website to add my key phrases, 2 key word research tools and a talk on website usability

On the eleventh day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me 11 great free online resources, 10 tips for writing for the web,  9 great tips on creating a strong brand, 8 great reports in analytics to analyse,  7 tips for writing good meta data,  6 ways to increase my link popularity, 5 steps for acquiring customers online , 4 ways to optimise my meta data, 3 key areas on my website to add my key phrases, 2 key word research tools and a talk on website usability

On the twelfth day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me 12 tips to do my own SEO audit, 11 free online resources, 10 tips for writing for the web,  9 great tips on creating a strong brand, 8 great reports in analytics to analyse,  7 tips for writing good meta data,  6 ways to increase my link popularity, 5 steps for acquiring customers online , 4 ways to optimise my meta data, 3 key areas on my website to add my key phrases, 2 key word research tools and a talk on website usability

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

As I rummage around the Internet I find great new tools that can make every day life in my web marketing business easier, here is a list of some great ones that I have been using.  I am sure you can put some of them to use:

• Irfan View: this is a great tool for resizing and cropping images, free and available to download from download.com.  I found this tool quite a few years ago and find that it great for keeping image quality.  If you download it and need help using it, just email me and I will send you on a little tutorial document I put together info@dynamicwebmarketing.ie.  
• Email Encoder: Got problem with spam, this nifty little tool might help reduce it http://www.prioritysubmit.com/seotools-page-size-extractor.html.  Spammers automatically visit websites and scrape information, like your email address of it and then send you spam, using this tool to encode the email address before you put it on your website will mean that the spammers will only see a pile of numbers and letters but the user on the site will see the click-able email address. Nifty eh!
• SurrealCMS: Got a website but cannot update it?  Why not get this brilliant CMS added www.surrealcms.com, its easy to use and allows you to edit the page content, images and meta data.  It can work really well but it will depend on your website, sometimes it may not work that well if your site uses a lot of tables. Talk to your developer before trying to get it implemented.
• RGB to Hex / Hex to RGB Converter:Working in web marketing means setting up websites, blogs, newsletters and personalising social media pages for clients. So it is really important that I replicate the brand colours easily. On occasions I have been given the RGB colours of the brand but on the web everything is done using hex colour strings.  This great little tool enables me to convert the RGB to hex quickly http://www.javascripter.net/faq/hextorgb.htm  without having to annoy the client or their brand company.
• Colorzilla: This is a great Moxilla  ad-on www.colorzilla.com.  Unsure what designer created your logo and do not know how to get hold of the RGB or the hex code of any of your branding colours?  Simply download, click on the dropper in the status bar (bottom left), hover over your website and in the status bar you will see the RGB and hex of any colour on your website. Tip: You have to download it while in Mozilla FireFox browser, do not try to download it while in another browser.  I know because I tried to do it the very first time, granted that was a good many moons ago now.
• Broadband Speed Test: Got broadband, know what you are paying for but unsure what speeds you are actually getting?  www.speedtest.net allows you to test your upload and download speed. If you are experiencing problems, the best thing to do is complete a few speed tests at different times of the day, take a screen shot and email it to your provider.
• HTML & CSS Validation: All websites should have their HTML and CSS validated. Download this Firefox ad-on  and test to see if your CSS and HTML validate. If errors are returned, send them to your web developer and ask them to be corrected,  some errors can effect usability, accessibility and even your search engine performance.  Don’t forget to download it while in your Mozilla FireFox browser.  Once downloaded click on Tools – Web Developer and Tools.

Happy times with your free tools

Do you have a website and unsure what search engine optimisation has been completed on it?  Well, here is a list of 12 questions which will enable you to complete your own search engine optimisation audit. If you answer no to any of the below questions you have just identified an area you need to address to ensure your website is well optimised:

1. Did you or your developer choose key phrases for each page? It is ideal starting out to choose 2 or 3 key phrases for each page, this will allow you to optimise for many different phrase or variations of the same phrase throughout the site and maximise your impact in the search engines and have all pages as a possible entry page.
2. When choosing your key phrases did you use a keyword tool like Google’s Keyword Tool or was it guess work?  Why not target terms that you know people search for online.
3. Are the key phrases repeated in the content two or more times? It is important that your phrases are repeated sufficiently to ensure that Google can easily identify them.
4. Are you including your key phrases in headings?  Headings are an important area and to ensure that your are complying with accessibility guidelines, they should be tagged h1-h6 (you can see the tags in the sourse code of your website)
5. Do you include, where possible, your key phrases in your page names and url’s?
6. If you have a deep website, are you using breadcrumb navigation, sample can be seen here - see the navigation at the top Home > Search Engine Optimisation > SEO Packages. This allows users retrace their steps, but it is also another way to get your key phrases on the page if you pages names include them.
7. Is your meta data individual to each page and contain the phrases specific to that page? Consistency is the key.
8. Does your meta data include a title, keywords and description? Some say that this makes little difference but in my experience it does. Also, search engines like Google uses it to make up part of your listing and when you create links in sites like Facebook, they pull in the meta data information to make up the link information.
9. Is your website up to date?  Google likes websites that are user friendly and you cannot get more user friendly than having an up to date website.
10. Does your website contain timely information? Again, Google loves user friendly websites and what’s more user friendly than information that talks about whats happening today and in the future.
11. Does your website have lots of inbound links from relevant high ranking websites and are you including your key phrases for the landing page on or around the link? If not, why not? If you are listed on relevant sites then the links will drive visitors to your website and if the key phrase is included Google will see it and it will help with your ranking for that particular phrase.
12. Are you active online e.g. using Social & Business Networking websites.  This blog is only 3 weeks old and its already getting a high ranking in Google for chosen search terms through other networking sites.

Still confused, check out our search engine optimisation packages.

Happy auditing